Re: [tied] h1,h2,h3 in Albanian

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 42558
Date: 2005-12-20

alexandru_mg3 wrote:

> Note: see *h1nh3men > enmen see *prH-wo maybe *prh3-wo > para that
> indicates the preservation of h1,h2,h3 and their transformation to
> e,a,o later....

It should go without saying that the laryngeals were lost in _post_-PIE
times. After all, we have them partly preserved as consonants in
Anatolian, and their developments in Indo-Iranian, Greek, or
Balto-Slavic, to name but the best witnesses, are clearly
dialect-specific. In Albanian, *r.H and *l.H regularly yield <ar> and
<al>. Good examples of originally syllabic nasals before laryngeals are
hard to find. <emër> (Geg emën) could be one of them, but there are too
many uncertainties concerning the reconstruction of the original
proto-word and its paradigm. PIE *h1nóh3-mn. with a proterokinetic
paradigm (gen. *h1n.h3-mén-s) is the usual solution, but it isn't
uncontested, and many IEists prefer something like *h1nóm-n., making it
acrostatic or proterokinetic. Anyway, if the Albanian word derives from
the weak stem *h1n.(h3)m(e)n-, the /e/ may simply reflect syllabic *n. >
*a, umlauted under some obscure conditions.

> Other issues: 1. difficult situation with gWrH-i > gurë where seems
> that H wasn't lost...

... until an epenthetic vowel was inserted before the *r.

> 2. or to interpret brh2g^- < bardhë (rh2 > ra > ar -> ok, but what
> happens with the lost of h1,h2,h3 between 2 Cons.?)

This root almost certainly contains *h1, not *h2. I misspelt it myself
in my "lecture" on Albanian soundchanges, for which I'm sorry. <bardhë>
reflects *bHr.h1g^o-.

Talking of the wrong laryngeals, there are a few obvious mistakes of
this kind in Abdullah's list of Albanian etymologies. For example, the
'plough' root (mentioned under *a:-) can't contain *-(a)h2; it's one of
the showcase examples of root-final *h3, cf. Gk. árotron < *h2arh3-trom
(later in the list the correct form is given). The root of 'lead, drive'
is *h2ag^-, not *h1ag^-. If it were the latter, it would have no o-grade
derivatives like Gk. ógmos < *h2og^-mo- (Skt. ájma-). Many of the roots
are cited in their "laryngeal-free" form (e.g. *aiw-/*ayu- 'vital force,
etc.', *a:ter- 'fire', *aus- 'shine'). This might be OK in an informal
presentation or when referring to entries in Pokorny's dictionary
(published half a century ago and too conservative even for its time),
but such antiquated reconstructions simply hinder the proper
understanding of PIE paradigms and word-formation rules.

Piotr